Mention the word car around our place and you’ll see two excited dogs. The Partners love going for car rides, especially if we’re going to the woods. This morning we drove a little north of the city to a forest I know. The dogs had a chance to sniff lots of good forest smells, pick up some burrs and stickers, while I looked around for some mushrooms for dinner.

Hedgehog mushroom

There were a few mushrooms around, but this forest wasn’t as generous to me as it was last time I visited, when I picked a big basket of lobster mushrooms. There were quite a few Slippery Jacks around, a variety of bolete which some people love. I’m not one of those people, though. They have a kind or slimy texture which might be an acceptable addition to a stew but are hardly choice. I let them be.

For dinner, I picked a dozen or so hedgehog mushrooms. These are a tan-coloured mushrooms which are distinctive in that they have teeth on the underside of the cap. They are firm mushrooms which are a tasty addition to any dinner. This particular forest starts giving up hedgehogs beginning in mid-August and while I never find them in huge numbers at this spot, it’s quite reliable for enough for dinner.